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The Doctor
History Interacts with characters from outside and inside storylines in his office. Has a detrimental affect on William and Wendy, experimenting on them and observing their reactions. His table is covered with medical instruments, forceps, jars and an overhead projector. There’s a number of medical prescriptions tucked into brown envelopes. The Doctor has a small plush office across the corridor from his surgery, with leather chairs and a desk. In his drawers there are medical reports for Wendy, Dolores, Andrea and Dwayne. Wendy is trying to lose weight and has asked him for help. Most of the actors are on a course of medication called ‘Petite Plan’ which appears to be a methamphetamine, a recreational drug typically used in the 1960s. The character of The Doctor is lifted straight from ‘Woyzeck’. In the Drafting Room, the file on The Doctor describes how he’s been working at the studio for years. He helps keep the actors smiling so that the studio can continue to churn out entertainment for the masses. It says that he may be schizophrenic. As well as helping the studio, he also likes to do his own thing, which means experimenting on the side with William and Wendy. He uses them as guinea pigs for his unethical research. He makes William eat nothing but peas in order to track the effects on his physical and mental state. William is tormented, but The Doctor does nothing to help him. Instead, he’s fascinated by William’s symptoms as if he were a lab rat. Appearance Wears a lab coat over a suit with glasses. Loop - Basic - Moves mannequin into dark room (Pitch Black Room) - 2:2 with the Personal Assistant in basement (Pitch Black Room) - Watches Dolores' party (Birthday tent) - Collects Wendy / taps watch (Finale Stage) - Examines Wendy as Mr. Stanford watches (Medical Room) - Prepares Stanford letter re. Wendy examination (Doctor's Office) - Runs his cane through individual audience members (Medical Room) - Studies Vitruvian Man in preparation for William (Medical Room) - Examines William (Medical Room) - Pops a pill with Claude (Corridors) - Shines spotlight on Dolores (Corridors) - Injects Dolores (Medical Room) - Makes inkblot (Doctor's Office)- Checks eye in mirror (Doctor's Office) - Watches Romola receiving Makeunder (Corridor) - Forces Romola to swallow blue pill (Corridor) - Shines torch at Dolores as Grandma (Masonic Temple Room) - Mirror speech (Doctor's Office)- Examines Lila and shines torch in her face (Basement Corridor)- Encounters Dolores as Old Woman (Masonic Temple Room) - Kneels down in front of table (Masonic Temple Room)- Check story board (Foley Room) - Gives Mr. Stanford Rorschach inkblot (Masonic Ante Room) - 1:1 (Consultation Room)* * 1:1 performed several times during loop Loop - Extended At the start of his loop, The Doctor is in the Masonic Temple Hall. He walks over to a headless mannequin and wheels it through a corridor in the Basement. He pauses at the doorway of a room. He reaches out to an audience member and pulls her in. 2:2 Hanging from the ceiling is a large bauble made of picture frames, chair legs, bits of wood and cardboard rolls. It represents the moon as a rotten piece of wood. The Doctor leaves the woman standing on her own while he inspects the mannequin. He raises an arm and looks at the hand. Suddenly he takes the woman’s hand and turns it over. He eyeballs her and walks her over to the opposite corner of the room. ‘Have you ever danced with the one you love in the moonlight?’ he asks and she shakes her head. ‘No? You should try it’, he says, ‘Have you ever danced with a stranger?’ She shakes her head again. He smiles at her response and says, ‘That’s good’. He takes her in his arms and pulls her close. He encourages her to lean her head against his neck and gives her a pat of reassurance. He tells her ‘It’s okay’ and they dance in the pitch black, legs shuffling from side to side. There’s a subtle shift as his hands move away and she can feel another person take his place. Eventually, the lights come on and The Doctor and The Assistant are standing at the side of the room, wearing white masks and watching silently. The two audience members look at each other, embarrassed. The Assistant is standing next to the mannequin which is dressed as an old woman. ‘The Grandmother,’ she says, ‘The most prized role.’ She unlocks the door and the two audience members are pushed out. The Doctor walks towards the Mess Tent and stops on the Finale stage. He stands still watching a group of actors celebrate Dolores’ birthday. He’s agitated and impatiently taps his watch. He’s waiting for Wendy and trying to tell her that it’s time for her examination. Wendy leaves the party and meets him on the stage and he begins to examine her. He inspects her tongue and shines his torch in her eyes. He takes her back to his surgery on the First Floor where he strips her and performs a thorough physical examination. After the ordeal, a light shines from behind a two-way screen and lights up Mr Stanford on the other side. The Doctor prepares a letter for Mr Stanford detailing his findings. The Doctor intimidates audience members by running his cane against them and whispering in their ears. He looks directly at a woman and holds out his hand. She takes it and he leads her to the Consultation Room. He feels her pulse and shows her a series of inkblots and asks her what she sees. She tells him, ‘an explosion’, ‘a woman’ and ‘a dragon’ and he looks at her blankly. He gives her an eye examination and asks her to read a chart on the wall. The letters spell out a series of sinister words, ‘LOOK THE SANDMAN KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT OR HE WILL MAKE YOU GO BLIND’. The woman starts to read the words and The Doctor says ‘Just the letters please’. The woman starts again and while she’s lost in concentration, he sneaks up behind her and chimes a tuning fork in her ear. She jumps and he whispers, ‘I had a patient like you once. His symptoms were consistent with yours. Verdict: death by drowning.’ He returns to his surgery and is joined by William. He feeds William a pea and tells him to take off his shirt. He scrawls a strange diagram on his stomach that looks like a pair of lungs filled with water. He makes him stand still with his arms out-stretched, and lights up an image of Da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’ against his body. He continues to study him with a detached fascination. William gets dressed and The Doctor pays him for his efforts. William is browbeaten, but grateful. The Doctor tells him to eat nothing but peas. Dolores strides into his surgery, magnificent in her red sequined dress. She strikes an elegant pose, but then slumps against the booths. The Doctor examines her and says, 'Let me see those beautiful eyes'. He sticks a needle in her neck and she falls to the floor. She leans against the side of one of the booths and plants her feet against the opposite wall. She pushes herself upwards and stops near the ceiling, wedged in horizontally. Eventually she slides down to the floor. The Doctor walks to his office and checks his eye in a mirror. He sits at his desk and creates an inkblot, painting the letters ‘F L A N G’ in black ink on a piece of paper. The letters refer to Fritz Lang (1890–1976) who was a German filmmaker and actor. He adds a splash of orange, before folding the paper in half. He pulls it open and seems transfixed by the result. Suddenly he jumps back, upending his chair, horrified by what the shapes imply. The Doctor wanders into the corridor and bumps into Romola. She’s just finished shooting a scene with Conrad and The Assistant is escorting her back to the workshop. The Doctor introduces himself as Justus Liebig and tells Romola that she was great. He asks for her autograph and gets her to sign an application form for ‘Petite Plan’. The Seamstress gives Romola a makeover for her ‘accident’ and The Doctor opens the door and looks in, but says nothing. He waits outside in the corridor and watches as Romola runs out of the room. He follows her and they stop next to a shrine. There’s a headshot of Romola above an altar and she examines it in disbelief. The Doctor grips her shoulders, ‘You’ve been in a terrible accident.’ ‘No, it’s just make-up,’ she replies uncertainly. ‘No, a terrible, terrible accident,’ he insists. He forces a pill into her mouth and clamps his hand over her face until she swallows. Suddenly she seems to forget everything and walks off in a daze. The Doctor walks back to his office and makes a short speech about mirrors. He examines Lila in the corridor and shines a torch in her face. He walks downstairs to the Basement and encounters Dolores as the ‘Grandmother’ in the Masonic Temple Hall. He kneels down in front of a table. He checks a storyboard in the Foley Room. He walks back to the hall and meets Mr Stanford. They sit at opposite ends of a plush circular booth. The Doctor performs a series of slick movements that seem to reset Mr Stanford. The two of them shake hands and there’s playfulness in their interaction. The Doctor gives Mr Stanford a Rorschach inkblot in an envelope. Mr Stanford studies it closely before screwing it up. He laughs manically and throws it at an audience member. The Doctor walks over to a headless mannequin and wheels it through the hall into a pitch black room. Final Show Trivia Rorschach inkblots are a recurring image in ‘The Drowned Man’. The bilateral symmetry is perfect for emphasising the theme of duality. The ‘Rorschach Test’ is a psychological test in which a person’s perceptions of inkblots are analysed. It’s employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially when patients are reluctant to reveal their thinking openly. The test is named after Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach, who wrote ‘Psychodiagnostik’ in 1921. A bottle of drugs on the desk is produced by a pharmaceutical company, care of ‘Johann Christian Augustus Clarus’. Clarus was a key figure in the original Woyzeck murder case. He was a German physician and it was his assessment of Woyzeck’s ‘soundness of mind’ that led to his execution. There’s also a schematic diagram of a ‘Barbel’ fish. This relates to a medical dissertation written by Georg Buchner in 1936 entitled, "Mémoire sur le Système Nerveux du Barbeaux’ (The Memory of the Nervous System of Barbels). On the wall are dozens of model eyeballs mounted in wooden frames, and during his loop The Doctor repeatedly examines people’s eyes. Throughout the building, eyes are a recurring motif. There are film posters for ‘EYES WITHOUT A FACE’ and ‘DEVIL IN HER EYES’, and Romola’s caravan is covered with notes saying ‘DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES’. Mr Stanford has an office full of headshots with the eyes cut out. John Reddick’s book, 'Georg Buchner: The Shattered Whole’, includes a chapter called 'A Question of Seeing' that discusses the use of eyes in ‘Woyzeck’. He suggests that, ‘the motif of 'seeing' relates not to the object, but to the subject. What matters is not the thing beheld, but the perspective of the beholders, and the meanings they ascribe to the things they see.’ Marie tells her child to close his eyes and sleep tight or else The Sandman will come and take him. The Doctor notes the peculiarity of Woyzeck’s eyes and The Captain says his eyes are like knives. There’s a series of wooden cubicles along one side of the room, similar to the telephone booths in the Drugstore, containing questionnaires for psychological testing. On the walls of the surgery, there are dozens of clipboards holding medical forms for the cast and crew of Temple Studios. The forms note the ‘artist’s psychological condition at the start of filming’ and most are considered to be ‘STABLE’. The Doctor’s name is ‘Justus Liebig’. The real Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) was a German chemist who studied agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organisation of organic chemistry. He is considered the ‘father of the fertilizer industry’ for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient. Quotes References ''''Category:Characters